Japan

One of the most beautiful versions of Yotsuya Kaidan. Tamiya, an egomaniacal samurai, determines to reunite with his wife Oiwa, who’s left him after a murder scandal. When her sister Osode is tricked into prostitution by a masseuse, Tamiya is joined by his friend Naosuke in turning the situation into a plot to win back Oiwa, which complicates as a new girl enters the picture. Tamiya’s scheming injustices backfire in the form of an onryo, a vengeance-seeking ghost, and yet the movie’s horror is entirely of human contrivance.Read More »

The men who surround and torment the young protagonist (demanding teacher, owner of the company that rapes his own daughter, despotic and uncompromising father) are opposed to women (victims of men) as embodiment of salvation.Read More »

When her husband leaves her for a younger woman, a woman plots revenge against him.Read More »

Synopsis:
Ashitaka is infected with an incurable disease by a possessed boar/god. He is to die unless he can find a cure to rid the curse from his body. It seems that his only hope is to travel to the far east. When he arrives to get help from the deer god, he finds himself in the middle of a battle between the animal inhabitants of the forest and an iron mining town that is exploiting and killing the forest. Leading the forest animals in the battle is a human raised by wolves, Princess Mononoke.Read More »

Quote:
A young witch, on her mandatory year of independent life, finds fitting into a new community difficult while she supports herself by running an air courier service.Read More »

This well-paced, effective drama by director Ko Nakahira eloquently decries the foibles of adultery by looking at a worst possible scenario. Young Kikuko (Yoko Katsuragi) is married to an older university professor and because of the age difference as well as several other factors, she is bored with the marriage and falls for one of his students, Yuichiro (Seiji Miyaguchi). The two manage to sneak off for stolen moments together and on one of those occasions in the park, they both witness a murder. Shocked by what they saw, the student insists that they immediately go to the police to testify against the killer. But this is Japan, after all, and the adulterous wife knows that losing face by losing her marriage over her infidelity is much worse than the need to identify a killer. Unfortunately for him, the student never quite sees it her way.
~ Eleanor Mannikka, RoviRead More »

Koichi is a gigolo who is paid by a madame to seduce and have sex with various women while she and her clients secretly watch. He doesn’t like what he’s doing, but he needs the money to take care of his seriously ill mother. One day he’s given the assignment to seduce a pretty waitress and they wind up falling in love. Koichi tells his madame that is going to quit, but she has other plans for him.Read More »

The third entry in the unrelated series which began with Shiryo No Wana, Toshiharu Ikeda’s bloody horror film deals with a policewoman (Megumi Yokoyama) investigating the apparent suicide of a college coed. The prime suspects include the girl’s professor, who may have been having an affair with her, and the professor’s wife, who frequents lesbian bars. Gruesome axe murders and mutilations ensue, leading Yokoyama to a shocking discovery. Less grisly than its predecessors, this installment is perhaps the best-scripted of the three.Read More »

Two brothers compete for the amorous favors of a young woman during a seaside summer of gambling, boating, and drinking, in this seminal Sun Tribe (taiyozoku) film from director Ko Nakahira. Adapted from the controversial novel by Shintaro Ishihara, and critically savaged for its lurid portrayal of the postwar sexual revolution among Japan’s young and privileged, Crazed Fruit is an anarchic outcry against tradition and the older generation.Read More »